Aerospace & Defense Technology - December 2021 - 35

Application Briefs
Precision Micromotors
Maxon Precision Motors
Taunton, MA
508-677-0520
www.maxongroup.us
I
t might have been a short flight for " Ingenuity, " but it was
viewed as a big success for unmanned space flight. NASA's
Mars helicopter flew over the surface of the Red Planet for
about 40 seconds in April and landed back on its four legs.
From NASA's perspective, this was a historic event similar to
the Wright brothers' first controlled flight in 1903.
With the Mars helicopter, the concept of powered, unmanned,
and autonomous flights on foreign planets is being tested. This is
comparable to the first Mars rover " Sojourner, " which paved the
way for scientific follow-up missions such as " Curiosity " and currently
" Perseverance " . " Ingenuity " was scheduled to complete
several flights over a period of 30 days, each lasting up to 90 seconds
and reaching a maximum altitude of five meters.
The flight was also considered a great success for motor
manufacturer maxon. The helicopter is equipped with six
brushed DC motors, which have been specifically modified
for this challenge. The DCX series of drives, with diameters of
10 millimeters, control the pitch of the rotor blades and the
direction of flight for the helicopter, which weighs only 1.8
kilograms and is solar-powered.
The lightweight design is a prerequisite for successful flight
on the Red Planet, where there is hardly any atmosphere,
comparable to conditions at an altitude of 30 kilometers on
Earth. " The biggest challenge in developing the motors was
Radiation-Hardened ICs
Renesas Electronics Corporation
Milpitas, CA
408-432-8888
www.renesas.com
R
enesas Electronics Corporation announced that its radiation-hardened
(rad-hard) integrated circuits (ICs) were
onboard the Hayabusa2 spacecraft that returned asteroid samples
to Earth in an armored re-entry capsule on December 6,
2020. Operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
(JAXA), Hayabusa2 launched onboard the H-IIA rocket from
the Tanegashima Space Center on December 3, 2014.
Arriving at the Ryugu asteroid on June 27, 2018, the
Hayabusa2 asteroid samples retrieval mission was designed to explore
the origins of the planets, the water of Earth's oceans and
source of life. Hayabusa2 carried multiple science payloads for remote
sensing and sampling, and its four small rovers investigated
the asteroid surface and analyzed the environmental and geological
context of the surface and subsurface samples collected.
Renesas' Intersil-brand rad-hard ICs were deployed
throughout the Hayabusa2 spacecraft. Renesas' IntersilAerospace
& Defense Technology, December 2021 www.aerodefensetech.com
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the extreme weight requirement, " says Aiko Stenzel, a design
engineer at maxon. " Every tenth of a gram had to be saved to
make the helicopter fly. What's great is that despite the weight
savings, we found a drive solution that has enough power to
adjust the rotor blades. And this in the face of high vibrations
and temperature fluctuations. " The standard variants of the
DCX motors are available for everyone and can be configured
online according to the individual customer specifications. "
maxon's drives are also used in the Perseverance rover. There
are ten BLDC motors and a special gearbox that will be used,
among other things, to handle the soil samples inside the rover.
The first of these motors already successfully completed its first
task by placing the Mars helicopter safely on the ground.
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Aerospace & Defense Technology - December 2021

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